Ford’s battles with BMW in 1970’s touring car racing are legendary as both manufacturers battled for supremacy.The adage ‘Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday’ was reflected in big marketing spends in the European Touring Car Championship at the time…

Such were the number of GeePee drivers involved one could have mistaken the paddocks for F1 events rather than touring cars; Stewart, Amon, Stuck, Hunt, Lauda, Ickx, Pescarolo and Emerson Fittipaldi all had a steer during the ETCC that year.

Whilst Le Mans was not part of the ETCC, Ford and BMW slugged it out in the 24 Hour Classicalthough only one of the factory cars went the distance; the Dieter Quester/Toine Hezemans BMW was 11th overall with 307 laps.

The race was won by the superb 3 litre V12 Matra MS670B piloted by Henri Pescarolo/Gerard Larrousse, the rapid sports-prototype covering 355 laps. The best placed Ferrari 312PB was 6 laps adrift of the Matra, Art Merzario and Carlos Pace were second with another Matra 670B driven by the two Jean-Pierre’s, Jabouille and Jaussaud in third place.

As to the rest of the factory touring car entries; the Dieter Glemser/John Fitzpatrick RS2600 schnapped a conrod on lap 239, the Chris Amon/Hans Stuck BMW had an accident on lap 162.

The woe continued with the Helmut Koinigg/Jean Vinatier/Gerry Birrell Ford having valve gear trouble on lap 152, Gerry Birrell swapped into this car after his own Capri had ignition problems. Hans Heyer co-drove that entry.

The first BMW Art Car was proposed by the French racer/auctioneer Herve Poulain who wanted to invite an artist to create a canvas on a car…

In 1975, Poulain commissioned his American artist friend Alexander Calder to paint a BMW 3.0 CSL which Poulain raced partnered by pro’s Sam Posey and Jean Guichet in the 1975 Le Mans classic.

The car ran in the ‘Touring’ class, failing to finish with a CV joint failure on lap 73.

‘Art Car’ BMW 3.0CSL, Le Mans 1975 (unattributed)

BMW won the class, a little 2002Ti completed 252 laps, Derek Bell and Jacky Ickx won the race in a Gulf GR8 Ford DFL, the first Le Mans win for Bell and for the long distance variant of the great Ford Cosworth DFV V8.

Since Calder’s work many other renowned artists have created BMW Art Cars including David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. 17 Art Cars based on both racing and production vehicles have been created.

BMW’s Thomas Girst says the purpose of the project has changed over time: ‘In the beginning the cars were raced. There wasn’t much public relations around them…Since then some of the Art Cars have been used in advertisements to show that BMW is a player in the arts…Part of what we are doing now is raising awareness of alternative and renewable energy sources’.